


North & South

by argle_fraster



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Historical References, Lightborn Project, M/M, Purgatory, Religious Figures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-18
Updated: 2012-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-12 09:42:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argle_fraster/pseuds/argle_fraster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Purgatory, Dean and Castiel struggle to stay themselves as they try to find an Elder Soul to get them out. Back on Earth, Sam finds himself searching for similar answers - with slightly stranger results. The goal is the same: get Dean and Cas out of Purgatory before it's too late.</p>
<p>[Written for everkings' 'Lightborn' Project]</p>
            </blockquote>





	North & South

**Author's Note:**

> As this was written in L's canon, using her universe, it probably makes sense to read the Lightborn comic first, which can be found here: http://everkings.tumblr.com/tagged/lightborn. I don't claim that this is any good or that I should ever be allowed near your canon.
> 
> Title and lyrics are taken from Alison Krauss' song "You Will Be My Ain True Love."
> 
> For additional story notes that explain in detail specifics within the story, please see the end.

_You'll walk unscathed through musket fire,_

__

_No ploughman's blade will cut thee down,_

 _

No cutless wound will mark thy face

And you will be my ain true love,

And you will be my ain true love.

_

"There's a bird following us."

Castiel doesn't say anything - the bastard doesn't even _turn_ , even though Dean knows the man heard what he said. He just keeps walking, picking around bushes like he's on a god damn safari minus the machete and substituting angelic mystical powers for the blade (actually, the powers would look pretty _bad-ass_ as a machete, and Dean wonders if Castiel could manifest them accordingly just to be _awesome_ ).

Dean stops, because that tends to be a tried-and-true way to get Castiel to actually pay attention. "I said, there's a bird following us."

"There are many things following us," Castiel says, without turning around; he does pause, though, so Dean thinks maybe that's half a victory right there. "A small bird is the least of our concerns."

"Ha!" Dean says, feeling triumphant. "You know it's small. So you _have_ been paying attention."

Castiel turns and sighs, expression both softening and lengthening into a look that Dean knows well - fond exasperation, the sort that would diminish life when it was gone only because its absence was more grating than the irritant itself. "Yes, Dean," he says. "Failure to pay attention in Purgatory is perhaps the most dangerous of all failures."

"Well, what do you think about it?"

"About failure?" Castiel asks. "I think I'm intimately acquainted at prese-"

"No, about the _bird_."

Castiel cocks his head to one side. The creature in question - a small bird with no special markings or colors, painted in a wash of muted browns that seem to blend in with the trees as soon as it stops moving, like something that is immediately overlooked and doesn't try to be anything more than that - flits down to the branch of a twisted tree, gnarled and curved and reaching up towards the lightning-scorched sky of nothing.

They both watch it for a long second. If it is anxious under the combined weight of their gazes, it doesn't show it; it preens, a bit, meeting their eyes for a long moment before dropping its beak back down and separating drab feathers.

"It is a bird, Dean," Castiel finally says.

"Nothing here is just _just_ a bird," Dean tells him. "If there's anything I actually learned, it's that. Maybe it's some kind of harbinger of something... worse."

Castiel shrugs (such an inherently human gesture it makes Dean's stomach twist at the edges a bit - because he _did_ that, he _brought_ that, he twisted those human things into Cas' grace). "I feel nothing dangerous from it. There is no malice."

"So what is it?"

"A sparrow," Castiel says.

Dean snorts. "Funny. Ha, ha. I'm serious, dude, what is it?"

"It is not going to attack us, so it is nothing you should concern yourself with," Castiel says, and starts walking again, because apparently the conversation has been effectively _ended_. Dean hates that about Cas. He hates that even after all this time and all this _human-ness_ , that Castiel still begins and ends conversations as he sees fit.

He has to hurry a bit to catch up, quickening his strides. "How did a sparrow get into Purgatory?" he asks.

"Perhaps the same way we did," Castiel answers. "Now be on your guard - I sense something up ahead that may be dangerous."

That's the last time that Dean thinks about the sparrow for awhile, after they get jumped by some freakin' _werewolves_ , and not the annoyingly worthless kind with chiseled abs that show up on the cover of teen magazines back home - the big nasty kind with extra rows of teeth and bodies corrupted by this place so badly they seem to be ten feet tall.

Which is okay, really, since the bird was kind of making Dean nervous - he can't _say_ that, because it's a freaking _bird_ , and not even a big one at that, and he's stared down hellbeasts whose breath reeked of death and rot.

Werewolves, see - those he can deal with.

\--

4:24 AM.

Sam's eyes are heavy. He reaches for his coffee cup and finds two empty ones before the one still half-full of lukewarm, barely-better-than-tar brew. He can't remember the last time he slept, which isn't completely strange but is distinctly _bad_ when he's trying to stretch himself over several historical texts in order to absorb the most information possible. He's retaining nothing. He should sleep and his brain won't shut off, and he sighs when he puts the coffee cup back on the table just because.

He's getting nowhere. He also knows he won't be sleeping, because in an hour, the sun will be rising and the light will be telling his body to stay awake, save Dean, find a way - so he pushes himself up from the table and heads outside. The motel is quiet, save for the flickering and cracking of the neon light advertising _vacancy_ ; of course there are vacancies, the place looks like it was condemned twenty-five years ago.

Sam jams some coins into the only working vending machine that's still selling Pepsi out of the old-style cans - worrying, but he doesn't think old soda is the worst thing he's put in his body before.

In the reflection of the machine's glass, he sees a figure: a shape, an outline, something dark against the even darker backdrop of New Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

He actually drops the can of well-aged cola as he spins, fingers closing immediately around the handle of the knife in his belt, but whatever it was is gone. There's nothing there other than some cicadas buzzing near the overhead lights, and his own hitched, surprised breathing.

It takes him awhile to come back down from the adrenaline high. The soda is flat as soon as he opens it, and he leaves the can full on the dresser, opting instead to sink into the bed and pull the pillow over his ears - he's seeing things again, and that means he's far too tired to get anything else done.

The clock hits 4:47 AM the last time he looks up at it.

\--

After the werewolves, there are the vampires, and then the harpy on the cliff side, and then the friggin' _wendigo_ that Dean swears is the same one that he and Sammy killed back when Dad had first gone missing. There's always something, even when there's nothing, and by the time Castiel finds a small cave in a hollowed portion of the rock face, Dean is exhausted again. _Mentally_ exhausted, according to the Teamaster, though it really doesn't matter, cause it all just feels like _balls_.

"Fuck," he sighs, and slides down the rocks to the ground, which isn’t much better. It's not much of a resting spot; he'd give his left nut for a shitty motel bed with springs poking him in the back.

Cas stays standing, against the opening, and the lightning outside looks like it electrifies his very form. It's been a long time since he's stood like that, staring aimlessly into the sky - it brings back memories, and not all of them are great, so Dean tries to hit the fast-forward button to avoid them.

"You tired?" he calls. "Thought that Wendigo had crushed part of your hand."

"I'm fine, Dean," Castiel replies.

Dean hasn't been _fine_ since he was six and he watched his life burn down while standing by the street. "Whatever. What direction are we going in, anyway?"

"We are currently moving in a circle," Cas tells him, and makes no move from the cave's entry point, which is irritating because Dean feels like he's talking to a wall even more than usual. At least Castiel is acting more normal - less tree-hugging hippie and more _I will smite you down with a wave of my hand_ , although normal is a pretty relative term when it comes to him.

"And... we want to be moving in a circle?"

"We want to find a way out," Cas says, and turns just to frown at Dean over his shoulder.

Dean lets his head fall back against the rock and tries to imagine the feel of the motel beds that took quarters and gave pseudo-inappropriate massages. "Thanks, Sherlock. Listen, without a real heading, how _exactly_ are we going to find a way out?"

"We are looking for an Elder Soul."

"No shit," Dean snorts. "You're like a broken record tonight."

"Funny, coming from you. You live out the same self-afflicted guilt every year."

The cave feels a lot cooler all of a sudden, and a lot less welcoming. Dean never thought he'd say he _preferred_ the werewolves and the demons and the giant monsters made up of more heads than any one creature should have. "Ouch," he says, and tries to keep it light even though it comes out anything but. "Tell me how you really feel, Cas."

"Why would I bother?" Cas asks from the cave's mouth; he looks like he's about to be swallowed at any moment. "You have a habit of not listening."

"You know, I just wanted to get some sleep," Dean says.

"So sleep."

It's taking an awful lot of concentration to keep from _punching_ something. After all, Dean's body isn't what's tired - it's his mind, and now he's not tired anymore, he's pissed off. "No, you can't just start that and not go anywhere with it. Let's go. Lay it all out, Cas, don't pussy-foot around the issue. What do I not listen to?"

"Everything," the other man says. "Nothing."

"Can't be both."

Castiel finally turns away from the sky - from the nothingness scorched with perpetual flames, from the blackness that never lightens to reveal anything. Purgatory is at the same time maddeningly depressing and shockingly exhilarating, and Dean's so damn tired of not seeing the sun that he could scream.

"I don't wish to do this now," he says, evenly, like the fucking _cop-out_ it really is.

"Shut up," Dean replies. "What don't I listen to? 'Cause I'm pretty sure I listened to your crap even when I was sure it was just that - crap."

The other man shakes his head, hands laced behind his back. "You didn't listen to me when I asked for help."

"Bullshit."

"If you had, we wouldn't be here, would we?" Castiel shoots back, and finally, _finally_ , he's angry - angry and sparking and all righteous fury condensed into a rumpled-looking suit. "If you'd listened to me, I wouldn't have had to go to Crowley, and I wouldn't hav-"

"Don't put this on me," Dean growls. He's on his feet faster than he thought possible after so long and so little time spent resting. "Don't even try to tell me that it's my fault. You _didn't_ have to go to Crowley; you _chose_ to do that. That's the point of free will, remember?"

Castiel's eyes are very, very dark. "Is it?" he asks, very quiet.

"What does that mean?"

"Are we ever really free of will?" Castiel asks. "It seems to me that you never are. There is always something making you think - making you second-guess. Normally it's Sam. You're never really free, because you will always have to think about Sam. He is your crutch and he is your chain."

Dean's hands are balling into fists. "That's not how it is."

"It is," Castiel says, "you just choose not to see it."

He's too fucking tired for this. Dean collapses back against the wall, drawing a hand over his face; his body feels exhausted, now, and it's probably just because his mind _thinks_ he is. Force of will and all that crap.

"We're not doing this now," Dean says, with all the finality he can muster. He's aware that he only sounds half as sure as Cas ever does saying the same words.

"Then when _are_ we?"

"Never," Dean tells him. "And that damn sparrow is back - I _told_ you that you didn't listen to me."

The bird is perched just inside the cave's mouth, on a small bit of rock that is shimmering in the lightning. It's not _doing_ anything, but Dean watches it for maybe ten minutes anyway, as Cas shifts inside and takes a seat across from Dean in an uneasy, tentative truce. For now, anyway, the matter is dropped.

Dean sort of hopes that the sparrow craps on Castiel's head, just because.

\--

On a small highway just off Interstate-80 and the Ohio Turnpike, Sam stops at a diner connected to a small, two-pump gas station that has seen both better days and more traffic. It feels strange, still, driving the Impala; strange because he did it once, when he wasn't himself and couldn't feel through all the demon blood, and strange because it feels different now. Dean's not really _dead_ , not this time, and it's almost worse because Sam can't convince himself that his brother isn't suffering and has finally gone somewhere better.

He's pretty sure that Purgatory isn't really "somewhere better."

The waitress at the diner is a pretty woman with latte-colored skin and dark hair pulled back in a tortoiseshell clip. Sam orders coffee and a newspaper, and can't find anything in it to signify that there are any supernatural activities happening nearby. He wishes there was something - something to keep his mind off his own failings at getting Dean and Cas out, but more so a direction to go in next. The Leviathans are still out there, and Sam doesn't know how to find them when they are scattered and leaderless.

The waitress brings him a cup of pungent-smelling coffee and a piece of cherry pie.

"Sorry," Sam says, looking up at her. "I didn't order any pie."

"Really?" she asks. She gives him a long look that says absolutely nothing at all, and then smiles in an action that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Well, my mistake, I could have sworn that you did. It's on the house."

Sam stares at the pie for a long time. Either he's unused to women coming onto him, or there are demons in the diner. He feels incredibly silly when he finally picks up a fork and cuts the pie straight down the center.

There's a gold coin in the middle, nestled between the cherries that are sticking to the crust.

With shaking fingers, Sam pulls the coin out. He doesn't know what the inscriptions on it mean - it's a language he doesn't know. He looks up, but the waitress is gone. In her place is an older woman with hair a strange color of nearly-blue gray. She comes over with a smile when Sam motions for her.

"Need a refill, darling?" she asks, and the lines around her eyes crinkle.

"The other woman," Sam begins, "the other waitress - who was she?"

He gets a blank look in response. "Honey, I've been working for four hours. I'm the only server on duty during the slow period."

"Oh," he says. There's an odd twisting down in his gut. He palms the coin, trying to be as nonchalant about it as possible, and hopes that the pie simply looks like he is halfway through eating it. "I'm sorry. I... I think I saw a patron and thought she worked here."

The woman nods towards the table space in front of him. "You want another cup? Think you got the last piece of cherry here, didn't even see Manny make any this morning."

It doesn't seem that the mystery woman - whoever she was - stayed around long enough to be found again. Sam slips the coin into his pocket.

"No, thank you," he says, and waves away the refill. His head is already buzzing.

\--

Later that night, in a motel just past the Indiana border, Sam sits in front of his laptop furiously typing in what he can read from the coin. It doesn't take much time; it's Sanskrit, carved into the face of the coin itself, and a simple Google search nets that it translates to _lotus_.

Sam doesn't know why anyone would give him a coin with the Sanskrit for a flower on it, nor why a woman posing as a waitress in Ohio would have it. He doesn't know if it has to do with demons or Leviathans or neither, something else altogether. All he knows is that it's the only lead towards _anything_ he's had in months, and he has to see it through.

"The hell," he mumbles, into his hands, and then runs his fingers through his hair. He needs to shower. He needs sleep and a shower, and some answers, and he is only sure he can get the first two. "Dean... I could really use your help."

Talking to the darkness doesn't do much. It doesn't even make Sam feel better anymore, because now it just makes him realize the emptiness of his life - without Bobby, without Dean, without Castiel, Sam doesn't have anything. He has the shredded remnants of a life he'd never even wanted and a legacy from a father he'd never really understood, and even the shattered pieces don't align properly to create a real existence.

The internet tells him that the lotus is often used in Hindu mythology, and is associated with the goddess Lakshmi. It also tells him that there are only two Hindu temples in the United States bearing the name "Lakshmi", and Sam doesn't have anything better to go off of.

The closest one is in Florida. It'll take a day or two to drive.

Sam turns the laptop off and tries to sleep, and ends up spending an hour staring up at the ceiling, trying to figure out what Dean would do if he were in Sam's position.

\--

Dean wakes up feeling like he just slept on rocks.

When he pushes himself to his feet, Castiel is barely visible, sitting at the edge of the cave mouth, and the sparrow is gone, though Dean isn't really sure that it actually _means_ anything, since the damn thing is always hovering about anyway. He probably just can't see it. There's a lot of last night's spat lingering at the back of his throat, so Dean concentrates on trying to wake his brain up again before approaching the man sitting on the ground.

"Anything try and eat us during the night?" he asks.

"No," Cas says, without looking up at Dean at all, which pretty much spells out everything else Dean hadn't gotten around to asking. There's no way he'll be able to stand the awkward silence that is growing between them; it's him and Cas, really, against Purgatory, and he's not keen on it being him, Cas and their tense _problems_.

Dean shoves his hands down into his pockets and bites the inside of his lip so hard it bleeds. "So, listen, about last night. About... what you said. I... you know, that thing about how I didn't listen to you. And that none of this would have happened if I had. I just wanted to say, you know, that... well. I mean, I'm sorry."

Castiel doesn't say anything, which is just worse.

"Okay, dude, see, an apology is usually given some sort of answer," Dean continues. "A sign that you acknowledge the person is saying something."

Again, he gets nothing. Castiel stays where he is, staring out at the nothing - at the nothing and the everything, at the red eyes waiting for them both to close their eyes. There are monsters out there hoping to rip them limb from limb, and Dean is spilling his guts like a teenaged girl, and Castiel is ignoring him completely.

"Cas," Dean grits out, and it's embarrassing how _hard_ the words are to get out. He's aching with angry, roiling energy at being ignored. "I'm trying to apologize, and you aren't going to get another one here, so you really oughtta-"

"Dean," Cas interrupts. There's something in his voice.

Actually, scratch that - it's that there is _nothing_ in his voice. It's not save the bees Cas, and it's not Holy Tax Accountant Cas, and Dean doesn't even know who the shit it is sitting in front of him right now, 'cause it sure as hell ain't the guy he's considered part of his family for the last three years.

Castiel looks up, eyes wide. "I don't remember what you are apologizing for."

"What?" Dean asks, and something is sticky in his throat, choking him.

"I'm starting to forget things."

Dean's knees hit the rock with such a smack it reverberates pain all the way up his chest. "No," he says. He reaches out to Castiel's shoulders without thinking, shaking him a bit. "No, no, no. Cas, snap out of it. You hear me? You know this stuff. You can't forget it, you can't become like _them_."

There's obviously _something_ of Cas left - enough to have him even talking to Dean, admitting this to Dean. But Dean knows that once it starts, it won't stop, until Castiel is nothing but an empty shell, the horrifying remainder of what used to be.

"Cas," Dean says again.

"Dean," Castiel replies; it's heart-breakingly broken-sounding.

"Okay, listen," Dean tries. His fingers close tight around Cas' shoulders without conscious thought. "Listen. We're going to - we're going to get out of here. We're going to find an Elder Soul, and we're going to fix this. I'm not letting you become like them."

Castiel's gaze is like a train wreck between his desperate desire to cling to hope and his own crushing disbelief. "What if I already am?"

"Shut up," Dean growls. "I'm going to punch you if you start talking like that."

It takes a few seconds to drag Castiel back to his feet because the other man is shaky and unbalanced. Dean's heart is hammering so loudly in his ears he's afraid he'll choke on it. He's got one link in this god-forsaken place, and his link is starting to fall apart beneath his hands, and he can't go through that again. He can't _lose_ this thing again - this... this _part_ of him.

He shakes the thought aside. "Cas, just follow me. Stay close. If you hear anything, kill it."

"What about the bird?" Cas asks, fingers pressing against his forehead like he's trying to push the lost memories back in with the tips.

Dammit, Dean had forgotten about that damn thing. He sees it, just past the mouth of the cave - it's still not _doing_ anything, but maybe that's the point. Maybe it's stealing Cas' memories one by one.

"Fuckin' sparrow," he says.

When he gets them both moving, half-dragging, half-forcing Castiel into walking with him, he keeps an eye on the creature. It flies a bit behind them, occasionally chirping out a strange, lonely sort of song, and Dean wishes he had a shotgun so he could get rid of it once and for all.

\--

The Hindu Temple of Lakshmi Narayan in Pine Hills, Florida, isn't really what Sam expected. Truthfully, he isn't sure _what_ he was expecting, but it wasn't a serene setting with a white-washed building and the pleasant hum of summer insects. Somehow, it feels strange to walk into a Hindu temple when he was the harbinger of the apocalypse, but he does it anyway.

There are statues inside. Sam looks at them with only half his focus, keeping his eyes roving around the center of the structure - an impressive building with gold-flecked paintings depicting gods and goddesses with multiple arms and blue skin.

He circles the entire thing once before he sees the woman standing near the far exit. It's the waitress from the diner in Ohio - she's smiling at him, like she's been waiting for him to arrive. She gestures for him to follow, and then disappears into the back hallways off the main room.

Sam follows, because he can't do anything else.

She goes into a small room decorated with vibrantly painted wall hangings.

"Hello, Sam Winchester," she says, and Sam closes the door behind him.

"Who are you?" he asks, and then, as an afterthought, "And how do you know who I am?"

She smiles; she's quite pretty. Bronze skin and dark ringlets of hair with strikingly sharp eyebrows and high cheekbones. She could have been featured on the cover of National Geographic, a picture taken by a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer while traveling through India.

"Most of us know who you are, Sam," she tells him, which is just more vague and puzzling.

"We?" he asks.

She gestures towards the wooden chairs that are sitting in the center of the room, covered with fancy-looking cushions. "Please, have a seat."

"I'd rather stand."

This makes her laugh, and there's something about the _sound_ of it. Being in the same room as her is somewhat intoxicating, like there's far more to her than meets the eye - Sam can't quite put a finger on what it _feels_ like until he recognizes a sensation that courses up through his veins, making his blood run hot. She feels like Bobby's apartment, like sitting in the Impala with Dean and listening to classic rock - she feels like _home_.

The sensation is so overpowering and _strange_ that Sam sits because his knees threaten to go out.

"What are you?" he manages to choke out, amending his earlier question to something that feels far more appropriate.

"You can call me Sita," she tells him. She takes a seat in the chair opposite him, elbows on her knees and shoulders drawn up close. Her eyes, up close, are so deep brown they look fathomless. "I'm here to tell you about the Earthsmiths."

Sam can only shake his head. "The what?"

"Earthsmiths," she repeats. "Elder Souls, Old Souls - we have many names."

Old Souls - that's something Sam has heard before, though he can't remember if it was from Bobby or his father's journal. Maybe it was neither, and it was just something he found during a random research night, looking for something else.

"You feel... different," Sam tells her.

This makes her laugh again, which is powerfully comforting. "Only because you are attuned to that sort of thing."

She doesn't say it like it's a bad thing, so Sam lets it go without comment.

"Why are you telling me about them?" he asks. "And how did you know what I needed to hear?"

"You weren't the only ones aware of the apocalypse, as you are aware," Sita says. "And you weren't the only ones aware of the Leviathans, either. Things that big tend to... announce themselves."

Sam can't tell if he feels better or worse than he did last night, which is an odd feeling in and of itself. "The Leviathans - are they still here?"

"Yes," she says.

"And are they still a threat?"

Sita doesn't miss a beat when she repeats, "Yes."

Sam pulls at his cheeks with his palms, just to test out the feeling in his face - he feels very small, all of a sudden, like he did back when he nearly destroyed the world by setting Lucifer free.

"Why are you coming to me?" he asks, finally, after trying to decide just which question is the most important one to get answered.

"Because your brother is trapped in Purgatory, and we need to get him out."

The mention of Dean makes Sam's chest constrict tightly. "Why?"

"His angel is the only one who can stop them," Sita tells him.

There are hundreds more questions that Sam should ask - who, what, how - and he just can't seem to get anything out. It feels like relief is flooding his system, and it takes him a moment to really identify it; it's relief that someone else is going to be helping him. Relief that he's not _alone_ , relief that they might be able to get Dean out again. He sits back in his chair and breathes and can't remember the last time he did this without feeling like there was a hole in his chest.

"Oh," is all he says.

Sita just smiles.

  
_And as you walk through death's dark veil,_   


__

_The cannon's thunder can't prevail,_

 _

And those who hunt thee down will fail,

And you will be my ain true love,

And you will be my ain true love.

_

There's a demon-dragon hybrid in the forest that seems to be made from pure shadows. Trying to make a dent in it is next to impossible - Dean keeps ducking out of the way of those claws and lunging with his knife, but he hasn't managed to cut flesh yet. Castiel's sword is out and he's trying to keep it busy, keep it occupied - he takes to the air in an impressive flash of wings, thousands upon thousands of increments of concentrated _angelic_ force, and even that only gives Dean so many opportunities with the monster's exposed belly.

It takes a long time to kill it, and Dean's panting at the end. He knows his _body_ isn't tired, but he's so freakin' over the whole body-does-what-mind-thinks thing.

Castiel is wiping off his sword on his trench coat when Dean says, "You broke Sammy."

He gets a surprised, and then hard look in response.

"His wall," Dean says, and motions towards his head with one finger, like that explains _everything_. "You took his wall down and _broke_ him."

At least Castiel has the decency to look abashed then. His gaze drops, even as the angelic sword disappears. "Yes. I remember that still."

"And I'm not letting you forget it," Dean says. "Because I'm not... I still haven't forgiven you for that."

"You shouldn't let me forget," Cas replies, sounding soft and kind of far away.

Dean doesn't want him to sound like _that_ ; it takes the fight right out of him, drags the wind from his sails. "Don't pull that shit."

"You are going to have to be more specific," Castiel says, dryly, and if Dean wasn't so tired and annoyed and _over_ Purgatory, he might have made a comment about how human that, too, sounded. Day by day, Cas is becoming more and more like everyone else.

Dean isn't sure how he feels about that.

"Acting like you are sorry about it and that's going to make it all better."

"You said you were sorry this morning," Castiel points out. "And you assumed _that_ would make it all better."

Fuckin' hell. "Not the same," Dean tries.

"Seems to me, you just don't want it to be," Cas tells him, and then drops the matter completely as they start moving again. Dean isn't quite sure what to say - so he settles on saying nothing, since it's the easiest way to just get their asses out of there.

It takes awhile before Castiel says anything, and they are in the thickest part of the woods that aren't really woods at all, in the place that isn't really a place.

"I remember looking for you in hell," the other man says, so quietly that Dean isn't even sure he heard anything at first. "I remember battling through the demons to find you."

"Stop it," Dean says.

Cas' expression is gloriously neutral. "Stop what?"

"Stop telling me all the things that you did for me like it makes up for what you did to Sam."

"I was under the impression that it was how this sort of thing worked," Cas admits.

Dean doesn't want to think about that, because Dean wants to hold onto his anger; Dean wants to be awful and hold grudges, because it makes him feel human. He feels so much less than human here - he feels like he's becoming one of them. And Dean can't lose himself like that again.

He sees Alistair and chains and ribbons of torn flesh.

"You broke my brother," Dean says - it comes out somewhat strained.

"I rebelled for you," Castiel points out.

Dean shakes his head. "I didn't ask you to."

"Oh, Dean," Castiel sighs, and his shoulders fall in on themselves a little, so he looks small inside the folds of tan fabric. "That's why I did."

\--

Florida is _hot_ , and Sam doesn't know why they couldn't have just done all this explaining in one of the northern states. Sita takes him to her apartment, which is decorated in neutral colors and feels calming - sort of like Sita herself, who moves with the grace of someone who has seen many ages on Earth.

"How many lives have you had?" Sam asks, as she's cutting up tomatoes to go into part of the dinner - Sam's mouth is watering with the promise of _real food_ after surviving off fast food for so long.

"Enough," she says, with another of her smiles.

It's when he asks about Dean and Castiel that she turns serious, stirring the sauce with a wooden spoon as it simmers on the burner.

"I can help," she says, "but I'm an Earthsmith, not a god. I have knowledge, not power."

"Helpful, but not what we need," Sam agrees.

Sita smoothes down the wrinkles in her khaki skirt. "We are going to need something else to actually get him out."

"Why do you stay here?" Sam asks, because he can't stop himself. He's curious. "Why don't you go somewhere else, like Heaven? If you can, why keep coming back?"

She sits down across the table from him and pushes him a cup of some sort of strong-smelling herbal tea. "There is always work to be done here."

"Can't you let someone else do it?"

She laughs. "If everyone thought like that, how would anything get accomplished?"

She loves humanity. She comes back over and over to teach and learn and know them all over again. Sam's almost overwhelmed with just one life; he isn't sure how he'd handle multiples. He doesn't tell her this, but he's pretty sure she just knows.

"You are the important thing," she says, tapping the back of Sam's hand with one finger. "You are the link between here and there - between here and your brother."

"But we need something to activate it," Sam supplies. He feels a little lost.

Sita nods.

Sam sits back in his chair. The herbal tea is good - something spicy, like he imagines India's breeze would taste like. He asks her if it comes from her past lives.

"My first," she tells him. "My first life was in India. It was a very long time ago."

"You became a legend," Sam says.

Her smile turns sad, then. "It's amazing how much they can get wrong when that happens."

Sam thinks of the angels, of Chuck the prophet and the garrisons that have tried to kill them, and can't help but agree.

\--

Dean loses track of time.

There isn't really _time_ in Purgatory. There aren't nights or mornings, or sunrises and sunsets, and Dean is a ship lost at sea without a lighthouse guide post to navigate by. His beacon is slowly falling apart and losing himself to the nothingness. He tries not to think about Balthazar, because it rattles him too much, and if there's one more thing than Dean Winchester _doesn't_ need, it's something else rattling the hell outta him.

He tries to tell Castiel stories. His stories suck; Sam's got the way with words, and Dean tends to skip over details he thinks aren't interesting only to end up backtracking later when he's missing bits he needs, and so his stories skip around and the linear track is lost. Cas doesn't seem to _mind_ , but it's not really something Dean is ready to write home about.

"The first time I met you, I thought you were a demon," Dean says. "Or, I don't know, something worse. Something I didn't know how to kill."

"You can't kill an angel," Castiel says, dutifully, and Dean is always _glad_ for the interjections because it means that Cas is still _there_. It means Cas is still _Cas_. And he doesn't mention that something _is_ killing Castiel, slowly, inch by inch, and threatening to turn him into something else.

They go over mountains. They go through forests. Dean loses track of the monsters he kills. He measures time in increments of how many things Cas has forgotten now. He hates that the number of memories Castiel has no recollection of is into double digits; he feels like somehow this is his fault, just like every god damn other thing around them.

The Teamaster was right - Dean's mind is tired.

For every memory Castiel seems to lose, Dean tries to replace it with something else. They'll never get out if Cas leaves half of himself behind.

"He said you need something to jar them back," Dean says, as Castiel sits staring down at his hands, palms up. There's flecks of blood on them from the last demon they killed, but Dean doesn't really think that's what Cas is looking at. "Your memories."

"I don't know how," Castiel admits.

"So _think_ of something," Dean says. "Think of something - god, I don't know. Think of something that's _awesome_."

Cas just stares at him with eyes full of sadness.

"Cas, don't," Dean warns, because he doesn't know what's coming and he's already _afraid_ of it. "I said awesome, not terrible."

"I can't remember anything from my time in Heaven," Castiel says. He sounds troubled. His eyes go somewhere else, somewhere that isn't Dean and Purgatory and the trees around them that give way to pebbles and rock and a barren landscape of nothing.

"That's because it sucked," Dean tells him.

Castiel tilts his head to one side, but his gaze is still somewhere far away. "I do not believe that my time with the Host in Heaven could possibly 'suck', Dean."

"Well, it did," Dean says, because now he can't stop. Now he's angry, and the worst part is, he doesn't know who he is angry with - he doesn't really think it's the angels. He's pissed, because he doesn't fucking _know_. "They were dicks with wings, and they had no sense of humor, and they treated you like you were nothing just because they could. You're better off without them."

"With you?" Cas laughs. It's an awful sound. Christ, it's almost worse than the howl of the monsters behind them, it's so empty and un-Cas-sounding. "I broke your brother, remember?"

"I said you broke my brother," Dean rasps, "not that you weren't also one."

This seems to perk Castiel up for a moment. "Oh," he says.

"I've told you that before."

"Yes," Castiel nods, "but I didn't remember that until just now."

Well, that's _something_ : progress in a weird sort of way. Dean isn't sure what to _do_ , but whatever is happening now at least isn't hurting (the jury is still out on whether or not it's helping), so he figures he might as well just plunge in headfirst and continue, "Besides, you aren't like the other angels."

"I know," Cas says. "I rebelled. I almost _fell_."

"Yeah, but..." Dean struggles to find the words. God, he wishes Sammy were here - Sam is always better with this kind of thing. "You were different before all that. Even when I first met you, you were different."

He thinks, for a quick moment, about Uriel - _the moment Castiel touched you, he was lost_.

"I think I would have been cast out of Heaven eventually," Castiel says, and it seems to be some sort of agreement. His shoulders are drooping once more.

"Then I would have found you anyway," Dean says. God, he's not even sure _why_. It just felt like the right thing to say.

Castiel is quiet for a very long moment. When he looks up again, his eyes seem a little less lost. "Thank you, Dean," he says.

The sparrow lands on Castiel's shoulder, and the man doesn't even seem to notice. Dean stares at it, wondering what the hell that stupid bird is trying to tell him.

\--

"You're going to need more than just your connection to your brother," Sita says.

"A spell?" Sam offers.

Her forehead furrows. "More like a boost - something magical. Something mystical. Something to break through the veil that separates this realm from Purgatory."

That sounds more like what Sam has spent the past few months searching for, and he's come up empty. They sit in silence for a few minutes, and Sam is lost in thought - thinking of the time spent without a soul, hunting the Alphas. He thinks of the time spent while Dean was in Hell, when he was living with Ruby.

He isn't even sure why he's thinking about it.

"In my first life," Sita starts, slowly, evenly. She drums her fingernails on the table. "In my first life, I was made to undergo a trial by fire to show my purity."

When Sam's eyebrows rise, she smiles at his face. "Purity is another word they tend to get wrong in the re-telling," she explains. "The fire was meant to show the purity of my _spirit_ , to show that I hadn't been tainted by the darkness and the demons."

"You want me to show the purity of my spirit?" Sam asks.

"It might work," Sita says. "But you'd need a special kind of fire. Mystical fire."

Sam isn't really keen on the idea of being lit on fire to show purity in something he's pretty sure he lost when Azazel stood over him feeding him demon blood.

"Your anchor to Dean is what we need," Sita tells him. She pats him on the shoulder a bit; she always seems to be able to read him better than he would like. "I've seen people who have previously been possessed by demons go through the trial and come out unscathed; it's not about what you are on the surface. It's about what you are at your _core_."

"Where do we get mystical fire?" Sam asks. "Phoenix?"

"No. You need a fire god."

There's a moment of nothing, and then Sam says, for lack of anything better, "I don't have one of those on speed dial."

Sita stands up and taps her finger against his forehead. "No, but you have me."

"What do you need for the ritual?" Sam asks.

"Incense," she says. "Saffron, hibiscus. A roll of rice paper. Water blessed at a temple. And some plum wine."

"Plum wine?"

She lets out her little twinkling laugh. "That's for afterwards; he's a bit picky about things."

It takes a day to get all the ingredients, and Sita says that her living room will do just fine - "so we have a location specified, this one is best" - and Sam feels useless when he stands off to the side to watch her burn the necessities in a bronze bowl she says was once used by monks in Tibet. She mediates for a long while, until Sam's eyelids start to droop.

Once all the bowl's contents have burned up, her eyes open.

"Was something supposed to happen?" Sam asks, because they are still alone in the room. Usually when they summon someone, the person just... appears.

"Just wait," Sita tells him, and goes to clean up the bowl in the kitchen.

\--

They get attacked by a ghoul as they continue their trek into the mountain, and it's nasty. Whatever power-ups this thing has gotten since arriving, Dean just hopes the rest of the creatures don't have; the ghoul moves at the speed of light, all black jagged lines where its eyes should be and a wide pit of nothing for a mouth. Dean's already full of nightmares, but if he wasn't, this thing would be appearing regularly.

It throws him against a tree so hard Dean swears his ribs snapped, even though he knows he can't really die here. He sucks in breath that somewhere, he knows he doesn't really _need_ , wheezing hard enough to rattle his teeth. Everything _hurts_.

Castiel isn't having much more luck with it, and that's a bad sign itself - he's dodging, but not quite quick enough, and the ghoul is faster, meaner, and an all-around dirty fighter. Cas goes down hard after the ghoul's claw-hands make contact with his stomach, and then the thing goes in for the kill move.

"No!" Dean manages to shout, as the ghoul's arm disappears into the curve of Castiel's chest. Whatever it's doing, it's _bad_ ; Cas sort of sucks in a breath that sounds like it just _ends_ , and his body starts to convulse. He's a freaking _angel_ , he shouldn't be able to _die_ , and Dean reacts without much more thought put into the matter.

He launches himself at the ghoul and somehow he _wins_. He isn't even sure how. Apparently just beating his fists at the thing until he gets a good hold of his knife and stabs, twisting at the end, is enough. The ghoul sort of gurgles and collapses into nothing - just like everything else in this god-forsaken place - and Dean struggles to his feet because Castiel is still sort of seizing.

"Cas," he says. He shakes Cas as much as he dares. "Cas, dude, stay with me."

Maybe the thing was eating his grace. Shit, Dean doesn't even know. His knowledge of Purgatory is limited to what Castiel tells him and the small bits about the monsters he's been noting as they go along.

"Cas!" he tries, with more force.

Castiel's eyes open. "Dean?"

"Jesus," Dean sighs in relief, and it's not okay when Castiel doesn't chastise him for taking the lord's name in vain. "Don't fucking do that to me."

Castiel sits up. At least he's healing; Dean wasn't feeling sure enough to bet on that. He puts a hand to his chest, and then looks up again, confusion written all over his rumpled features. "What just happened? And where are we?"

For a long moment, Dean just stares at him.

"Oh, no," he says, and god, the syllables _hurt_. "No, no, shit, _Cas_."

He gets nothing but a blue-eyed stare back at him. That's when Dean knows he's really and truly fucked.

\--

The "fire god" shows up outside Sita's apartment door a day and a half later, wearing oversized sunglasses and carrying matched Gucci luggage behind him.

"Next time, you are picking me up at the airport," he snips, as he breezes in and deposits his scarf, glasses and shoes in the foyer. "And I am never flying United again. I had to use frequent flier miles for this."

Sam stares at the rather short Japanese man who is currently unzipping his bag and rifling through the contents; he's met a few gods in his time. He's met an awful lot of beings who shouldn't really exist, and he's never seen one quite like this man.

Sita seems unfazed by the behavior, and offers him a small glass of the plum wine before he's back up on his feet again.

"Thank you for coming all this way," she says, politely.

"Couldn't you have just, I don't know, transported here?" Sam asks.

He gets an irritated look for that, dark eyes beneath bleach-blond fringe. "And announce my presence to every Leviathan in the area? Are you stupid? You're public enemy number one, Sam Winchester, now that the chompers know your brother and that angel are AWOL."

"This is Kagutsuchi," Sita introduces.

"Kind of a mouthful," the fire god says, and finishes off the glass of wine. "Call me Yuya."

Sam tries to come up with where he's heard the name before. "Shinto," he says.

"Smarter than you look," Yuya tells him, and Sam tries not to be offended. Yuya turns to Sita, who is holding the bottle of plum wine and looking patient. "What exactly do you need me here for? I had to cancel several television engagements for this."

"We need holy fire to forge the link between Sam and Dean, in Purgatory."

Yuya's gaze on Sam then is very sharp. "You think it'll work?"

He seems to be talking to Sita rather than Sam, so Sam stays quiet. He isn't sure how to deal with a Shinto fire god and a woman straight out of Hindu's holy legends considering he is Lucifer's chosen vessel. Somehow, the whole thing seems a bit wrong.

"It's the closest link we have," Sita says, "and we need Castiel."

"I'm sorry," Sam interrupts, and they both turn to look at him, Sita with an open expression and Yuya with already growing irritation. "Why exactly do we need Castiel?"

"He started this mess," Yuya says, and plops down on the couch with a sigh. "He's got to finish it."

Sita shrugs slightly. "It's a blood thing."

It's _always_ a blood thing. "I see," Sam says, though he sort of doesn't.

"Not here, though," Yuya says, and Sam is pretty sure he just skipped at least three parts to the conversation that were somewhat necessary. "We need a place that has a strong connection to both of them."

There's not a good place for that - Sam would have said Bobby's before everything, but even that stronghold is gone. Suddenly, he feels like his life has been pulled out from underneath him and he's finally noticing all the holes. There used to be more than this. There used to be more to his _life_ than this.

It just fuels his desire to get Dean back; he can't lose the last thing he's got left.

He is shaken from his thoughts by Yuya throwing a shoe at him.

"We're going to Kansas," the Shinto god says. "You're driving. And I call shot-gun."

  
_Asleep inside the cannon's mouth,_  


 _

The captain cries, "Here comes the rout,"

They'll seek to find me north and south,

I've gone to find my ain true love.

_

Moving with Castiel through Purgatory is like pulling a baby along with him instead of a friend - and almost brother, and almost... well. Castiel spends most of his time volleying in-between either losing more memories or trying to sort through the ones he still has, and it's not helping them try to find the way out and it's definitely not helping them get through the creepy-crawlies that are still hot on their tails.

If Dean thought he was emotionally exhausted before, he didn't have a word for what he was now.

"I don't remember my garrison," Castiel says, staring up at the trees - and Dean has a flash, a terrible flash, of Cas doped up on pain killers and uppers and downers and everything in the middle. Cas is somewhere between following the bees and planning orgies, and Dean can't reconcile the things in his head. He doesn't _want_ them to go together.

"They were assholes," he says, even though he knows he shouldn't bother; Castiel will forget this conversation, too, within a couple of hours. It seems the only memories he can really hold onto are the bits of pulling Dean out of hell, being trapped in holy fire, and watching Raphael come down to smite his ass back to Thursday last. He can't even remember the ugly parts with the Leviathans and Sam and Crowley.

As much as it sucks to say, hell, maybe it's better that way, at least.

"Get some rest," Dean barks. Castiel obeys, and Dean wonders when the other man will stop doing that, as well. Probably about the time that he forgets who Dean is - maybe Dean's been lucky so far, that the memory of him seems to be the last one to go. He doesn't know what Castiel will be once everything that makes him who he is gets stripped away.

Nothing, maybe. Just like the rest of them.

He sleeps for a little while - an hour, maybe, at most - and wakes to a shrill call. He wakes like he used to, like he has to here in monster-land: knife drawn, heart in his throat, adrenaline singing through his veins. But there's no monster waiting to disembowel them both. There's just the sparrow, singing while it's perched up on a tree branch, looking down at them.

It hops over to another branch, and then glides through the air to another branch further away. There's a lot of crappy, creepy, low-hanging mist around them.

Dean watches the bird for a very long moment. Then he shoves his knife back in the sheath, and follows it. Why the hell not? It's been following them for ages, and he's got nothing else. He's got an angel that barely remembers he's an angel and no way out, and he's done tip-toeing around Purgatory like he's afraid of offending the big guys upstairs.

He follows the bird for a long time. For awhile, he's completely convinced that he's going crazy, and he shouldn't have left Castiel alone, but he's got to see this through.

As he pushes through bits of low-hanging foliage and tree branches that look more twisted and _dead_ than anything else, he finally stumbles into a large open clearing that he's positive he's never seen before.

There's a woman standing in the middle.

"Hello, Dean Winchester," she says.

"I'm really fucking sick of people knowing my name," Dean replies.

She looks Middle Eastern - dark hair, creamy mocha skin. She gives him a long, slow smile, the kind that warms him all the way up from his toes even as he's trying to deny it. "I'm sorry for that," she tells him.

"What are you, some kind of god?" Dean asks. "Angel? Monster?"

"None of the above," she says, "but I've had the privilege of knowing all of them."

This puts him on edge. The sparrow - stupid, fucking bird - is perched on her shoulder, watching Dean like its judging him. It probably is. When he's being honest, Dean is usually judging himself, too.

"Are you an Elder Soul?" he demands.

"Yes."

Dean spreads his arms to either side. "So, what, you waited until now to show up when your pet has been following us forever?"

"You weren't ready," she says, as she shakes her head and puts her hands up, palms facing the sky, in a silent apology.

"Oh, _come on_ ," Dean says. "Seriously? _Seriously?_ You wait until now, until Castiel is _falling apart_ , until he's got next to no memories left, until we're so exhausted and tired and run ragged that we can't possibly defend ourselves any longer? You couldn't have come _any_ sooner? Waiting until the very end, is that your M.O.? Who the hell are you, anyway?"

Her expression is very gentle when she replies, "In one life, I was called Mary Magdalene."

_That_ gets him. Dean's arms fall back down to his sides. He stares at her for a long moment, taking in this woman - this _Earthsmith_ , this being standing in front of him wearing the guise of a young woman from a time long ago, with beige-colored robes and a shawl over her head.

"Shit," he says.

"It is usually at the end of all things, when you are ready," Mary tells him.

"You know, they call you a whore."

Mary smiles again. "Yes."

He doesn't ask if she was. There are some things that Dean won't do. He just looks at her, trying to take it all in - there's an Elder Soul, here, and maybe, just maybe, they've found a way out.

"What now?" he asks.

"You need Castiel to regain his lost memories. This place will rob him of all of them if you don't act quickly."

"What..." he trails off, and tries to steal himself again. Shit, he really _is_ tired. "What do I need to do to get Cas' memory back?"

He's never seen anyone so young look so damn old before. "He needs an emotional jolt. The Teamaster told you this."

"Yeah, well, the Teamaster was mum on a lot of things, too," Dean mutters. "And then what?"

"And then they will be ready for you."

Dean blinks at her. "They?"

"Do you know what the greatest thing in the world is, Dean Winchester?" Mary asks instead.

Dean doesn't say anything. He can think of a lot of great things - pie, cars, a cold beer on a hot summer afternoon, the feel of the Impala rumbling across the stretch of road beneath his hands. His brother, sitting next to him, bitching about the music. Castiel and Bobby in the back. _Family._ The thought makes his eyes prick, and he wants to look away, only he can't.

"Love," she says.

"Seems like the thing that drives us to our worst, too," Dean says into his hand.

Her smile now seems very genuine. "Correct."

"Did you love him?"

"I've loved many people, Dean," she replies. "And all of them important."

He has to get back. He knows he has to get back. But still, he wishes he could stay, here in this clearing with this woman - this legend, this figure who has been dragged through the mud and is still standing tall throughout it all. "But, seriously," he says. "Did you?"

"Yes, I did," Mary tells him. She is suddenly standing next to him. Her hand on his arm is maddeningly gentle. "You should get back now; you should not leave Castiel alone in this place any longer."

"I don't know how to fix him," Dean says, half-terrified and half-pissed.

Mary's fingers run slowly over the curve of his cheekbone. "Yes, you do."

\--

Sam doesn't want to go into the house. He'd rather be anywhere else, and he doesn't even have the same memories that Dean does. He doesn't want to go and it's infuriatingly perfect, because the house is the tether that firmly keeps Dean and himself tied to this life they lead. It's the past they can never forget and the blood they can never run away from.

"This will work?" he tries, parking the car outside and trying not to spend too long staring up at the windows. He doesn't like that it was rebuilt. He doesn't like that someone else has lived here, in his home, in his past.

"It should," Sita says. "It's the biggest connection you have. We have to use that."

Yuya, despite that fact that for the drive largely _never shut up_ , is oddly quiet.

"Hey," Sam says. "You alive back there?"

The man's eyes are very dark, fixed on a point up the street. "We've got company."

Sam should have known - shit, he should have _known_ , but he was so caught up in everything else he didn't think about it.

"Demons?" he asks, quiet.

"Worse," Yuya replies. He still hasn't taken his eyes off the point. He advances away from the car, designer bag all but forgotten, hands out to either side. "Get inside with Sita."

"If it's Leviathans, I know how to-"

"And I'm a _god_ , you daft twit," Yuya snarls. Finally, _finally_ , he looks over at Sam, and his eyes are nothing but fire - that's all there is, inside them, the burning and scorching of flames touched by something Sam really isn't sure he ever wants to understand. "Get inside. I'll take care of this."

It's mostly surprise (and a little bit of fear, since _Kagutsuchi_ 's largely an unknown entity still) that has Sam backing up until he's almost inside the house, the house of memories and dark nightmares and Dean's haunted expression. He watches as the other man begins a walk up the street and turns into nothing but flames. It's so bright he can't see anything; Sam throws an arm up over his eyes and still feels it against his face, like angel-fire, hot and angel-bright, and stumbles inside the foyer.

"What," Sam gasps, tripping over a table that seems to have been left behind from the previous owner - there isn't much there. It's been empty for awhile, it seems, from the layer of dust coating the remaining furniture. Left in a hurry, probably.

Sam doesn't blame them.

Sita's hands are on his arms, hauling him upwards with more force than Sam thought she had in her. "To the bedroom," she says, and they are moving up, up, up the stairs.

He wants to ask how she knows, but she's ageless, and he feels like a child against her.

Outside, Kagutsuchi is burning so brightly the light is streaming in through the windows. Sam can see the outline of the panes against the far wall; when the light fades, the shadows remain. He doesn't doubt that they are burned clean through the wallpaper and into the drywall itself. He's seen what deities can do.

Sita pulls a knife from her skirt and stands in the center of the room, drawing a circle in the carpet with the tip of it. "This was done for me, once," she says.

"A circle," Sam repeats, and he can kind of remember that. He doesn't know much of the religion that worships her, but he recalls a detail like that.

"He drew a circle in the sand and told me that as long as I was inside it, I would be safe."

There are footsteps on the stairs, and Sam hopes they are Yuya and not the Leviathans. "Will I be safe inside the circle?"

Sita's smile is thin. "I don't know, Sam."

"Let's get on with this," Yuya says. He's back to normal, back to the short, bleach-blond Japanese guise that Sam's eyes can manage looking at. He also looks a bit annoyed; apparently, the fight with the Leviathans has irritated him. "I need to make it back before Friday to make my next appearance."

"Are there going to be more?" Sam asks.

Yuya snorts. "Of course there are. So, like I said, let's just get this over with."

Sam steps inside the circle that Sita carved into the carpet. He doesn't even know when the tenants had put that in. The color doesn't match the walls, but maybe he's just seeing red - everything in this room is red besides Azazel's eyes. Sam tries to block that out.

"Now what?" he asks.

"Call out to your brother," Sita instructs, "with your heart. Use the bond that's between you; it's the only thing that will keep you both anchored."

Sam takes a deep breath, and thinks of Dean. He thinks of Dean driving the Impala, he thinks of Dean tossing him a brew by the side of the road. He thinks of Dean the night they burned Bobby's flask.

"And then?" he tries.

"And then you close your eyes," Kagutsuchi says, and he goes bright again, first his eyes and then his hands and that's when Sam closes his eyes as commanded, "and I light this bitch on fire."

\--

There is a demon there when Dean makes it back to the tree where he left Castiel. There's a demon that has no form - it's only inky shadows, slithering along the ground. Dean crashes through the overgrowth and nearly bowls them both over, because the demon has its disgusting incorporeal hands wrapped around Castiel's neck and is sucking him dry.

"Fuck _off_ ," Dean growls, and flips them all over, and it's a tangle of limbs and things that aren't really limbs but should be; he isn't sure how much use his knife will be, so he ignores it and goes for the demon's eyes instead. He finds a place he thinks they should be and pushes, stabs, forward and upwards with his fingers, until his hand has gone halfway through the thing's dark head and he feels like he's playing with jelly.

It's disgusting. He rolls over and the demon tries to go back to Cas, who is choking and reaching for his throat. Dean manages a kick at what should be a knee, and maybe it's the fight or maybe it's something else, but the demon seems to be materializing into something solid. Solid, Dean can fight. He aims for a punch but grazes the demon's shoulder badly, and there's a strange, high-pitched shriek next to his ears.

Then Castiel is up and on his feet, hand outstretched. The demon is gone, smoke-gone, gone-gone, and Dean's left staring up at the man in the trench coat.

There's a second of nothing.

"Who," Cas says, and he's still in his offensive stance, eyes wild, "are you?"

"Shit," Dean says for the second time in who knows how long.

Castiel no longer knows him. Dean is a threat; not a known one, like the demon had been, but more unpredictable and probably more terrifying since he's new. At least Castiel's immediate response is to get into fighting mode rather than running. There's some angel left in there after all.

"Cas, listen to me," he starts.

Castiel takes off running through the trees.

"Cas!" Dean shouts. He can't push himself up to his feet fast enough and he's afraid he's lost the bastard. _Shit_ , when did Cas learn to run that fast? "You son of a bitch, _wait_!"

He sprints through the trees and bits of branch whip him in the face hard enough to draw blood. He finally catches sight of Castiel again, bits of tan trench coat against a sea of desaturated colors that don't exist. There are things behind them; they are making too much damn _noise_ , and Cas doesn't seem to care. Dean's got some training, at least, and he grabs a hold of a tree branch to propel himself forward enough to latch onto Castiel's back and take the man down.

They fall into something that might have been leaves - screwed-up Purgatory leaves, anyway. Cas is wrestling Dean away, trying to get free; Dean takes an elbow to the face that hurts like hell and will probably bruise, only he isn't actually sure if shit leaves bruises here or not. He tries to pin Cas' arms down and only succeeds in getting one.

Castiel is growling, angry. He's a trapped animal who is fighting back against what he thinks is a predator.

"Cas!" Dean shouts. It's probably useless. Castiel doesn't remember him at all.

Cas' hand comes up like he's going to angel-blast Dean all the way into hell, and Dean has approximately a quarter-second to save his own stupid skin. He does the only thing he can think to do, which is to lean forward and kiss Cas roughly.

It works. Castiel goes mercifully limp, which is also bad, because it means that Dean is just sort of kissing someone who is as responsive as a dead fish beneath him. But there's gotta be something there, some spark, some bit of _Cas_ , and hadn't Mary said that love was the most powerful thing humans had?

Dean tugs at Castiel's lip to part the man's mouth, licking his lips open at the corners, and Castiel shudders and sighs, all at once, muscle by muscle. Dean can _feel_ it against his arms and chest. That's when the other man starts to _move_.

He'd always thought Cas was a slow learner, but he's pretty quick at this - maybe it was the practice, or the porn, or whatever. Dean doesn't even care. Castiel is kissing him back with a ferocity and desperation that Dean hasn't felt in so long he's not even sure he could still name if he tried.

When he pulls back and away, he's short of breath. Cas is staring up at him with achingly blue eyes.

"Dean," he breathes.

He should say something good; he should say something suave, at least, or something like, _oh, hey, we're still in Purgatory and I need you to get us out._ Instead, Dean says, "So, I kissed your memory back."

Normal people would have shoved him off, but Cas has never been normal. He nods, calm, like Dean just told him the weather for the day. "I know."

"Dean," Mary says. She's just there all of a sudden.

He's a bit reluctant to get up, because kissing Cas felt _good_ , like maybe he should have done it a long time ago, but Castiel is in business-mode again with his restored memories.

"It's time," Mary tells him. Above the trees, there is a light. Dean hadn't even noticed it until she pointed up at it. It's unnatural light; it's distinctly not Purgatory, so he wants to trust it. "They are ready."

And Dean doesn't have to ask who _they_ are, because he feels it in his bones, just as he hears Sam's voice call out, _Dean?_

"Sammy," Dean says.

"It's yours, from here," Mary tells Castiel. "I can get you halfway, but you have to complete the circle."

"I can," Castiel says. He's rumpled and sort of flustered, and there's a leaf stuck in his hair. Dean wants to reach over and pull it out. "It's okay. I remember again. I have full use of my powers."

Mary Magdalene looks at Dean with a fond expression. "I am sorry we did not have more time, Dean Winchester. You are a soul I would much like to spend some time talking to."

_Dean, are you ready? I think I can get you out._

"Yeah, I'm sorry the bible gets all the shit about you wrong," Dean tells her, and means it.

Mary just laughs, and it sounds pretty real. She reaches out and touches Castiel's shoulder. "Are you ready?" she echoes Sam's question.

_Sammy, we're coming,_ Dean thinks over the buzzing cord between them.

"Hold onto my hand, Dean," Cas says.

"Close your eyes," Mary instructs them both.

_I think I've got it,_ Sam says in Dean's mind.

Dean thinks of Sam and cherry pie and cold draft beer, and then he feels nothing.

\--

The feeling comes back very suddenly, jumbled and really overpowering, because apparently Purgatory was muting all that stuff, and Dean ends up puking on the carpeted floor of the room where Mom was killed and Sam's destiny was forever changed. It's not one of his finer moments.

"Classy," some Japanese dude with fire coming out of his hands says (or the fire _is_ his hands, Dean really isn't sure). "I'm so glad that I was here to witness this glorious occasion."

"Dean!" Sam shouts, and he's all up in Dean's business again, trying to be nice, while Dean is trying to wipe bile off his chin with the back of his hand.

But it's kind of worth it to see Sam look so happy. He's got that about-to-cry look on his face. "Welcome back, Dean," he says, quiet, and then it's pretty okay.

After all, they aren't in Purgatory anymore.

That's pretty much _more_ than okay.

  
_The field is cut and bleeds to red._  


 _

The cannon balls fly round my head,

The infirmary man may count me dead,

When I've gone to find my ain true love,

I've gone to find my ain true love.

_

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of what I tried to do here was take a few female figures who have suffered at the hands of religion and have been reduced to merely women who need saving or women who are sinful and can't be saved. The major religions' treatment of women is something that irritates me greatly, and writing this seemed to help with that a bit.
> 
> Mary Magdalene is obviously the biblical figure who followed Jesus Christ and was a key person in his life, death, and supposed resurrection.
> 
> Sita is a Hindu figure from the Ramayana, wife of Rama, who is seen as the "perfect mother, woman and wife" in the text.
> 
> Kagutsuchi is the Shinto "kami" of fire, whose death killed his mother and led to the creation of volcanoes when his father beheaded him. Any resemblance to a current Japanese pop idol is entirely not-coincidental and come on, I had to do it somewhere.


End file.
